Halloween recipe – sweet potato and squash mince bake

Halloween is just a few days away, and it’s the season of pumpkins, squash and other things orange. This sweet potato and squash mince bake is a modified Chinese recipe – the original uses processed fish balls instead of mince, and uses only squash or pumpkin, but I prefer cooking with fresh meat, and mixing in the sweet potato gives you a more balanced mix of your veg intake. It will make a nice main dish to go with all the beautiful Halloween cakes and snacks on the BBC website, for example (love their Good Food section!)

This recipe takes a bit longer than the others we’ve listed so far, and a lot of it is prep time. There’s a lot of chopping involved. If you want to save a bit of time, then M&S do a bag of mixed butternut squash and sweet potato cubes (350g). I used an onion squash for this recipe, not only because it’s the right size and I don’t like leaving half-cut veg in my fridge, but also because the flavour isn’t as sweet, so works well with sweet potatoes.

There are also two other easily swappable elements in the recipe, and they are the mince and the salted egg. You can use any type of mince you like apart from lamb – lamb tastes too strong and doesn’t balance well with the rest of the flavours. I’ve used pork and beef before, and this time I’ve used veal as it was on offer.

The salted eggs are from the original Chinese recipe, but not to worry – if you can’t get hold of them, then normal eggs will do just as well. You’ll need to add a bit more salt along the way, but the whole point of the recipe is that everything will half-disintegrate and mesh together, so normal eggs are just as good.

This recipe takes around 1 hour to make, and will serve 3-4 people.

Ingredients
1 onion squash (roughly 500g)
1 sweet potato (roughly 300-400g)
2 salted eggs
5 peppercorns
300-400g mince
5 tablespoons Chinese shaoxing cooking wine (optional)
100g Greek cheese

You’ll also need olive oil and salt to taste.

We’ll be starting in a frying pan, and will then move the mix into the oven, so you’ll need to prepare a baking tray (lined with foil if you want to save some scrubbing later). Continue reading “Halloween recipe – sweet potato and squash mince bake”

blenderandbasilOct 29, 2015Feb 3, 2016Leave a comment

Recipes

Pork belly and sauerkraut stew – a modern take on a traditional Chinese recipe

The pork belly and Chinese sour cabbage stew is one of my favourite dishes from China’s Dongbei cuisine, but sadly it’s extremely difficult to get hold of Dongbei-style sour cabbage outside China (the type from Southern China tastes very different). In order to make your own through my grandmother’s traditional recipe, you need to make a really massive batch, and I don’t cook with it enough to make that a realistic option.

Luckily, sauerkraut tastes a lot like it, and although it’s not 100% to the traditional taste, you can get the same balance of the refreshing sour taste of the sour cabbage and the rich and juicy pork belly from this recipe.

Also, to note, I’ve used the method where you cook the uncut pork belly first. You can also slice the pork belly into strips when the pork is raw (if it’s too soft to cut easily, just put it in the freezer briefly until it’s easier to cut). However, directly cooking the sliced pork belly gives you a greasier dish in the end, so I prefer cooking it the longer way.

Traditionally, you’d use a vermicelli made from yam for the stew (it has to be the thicker variety), but here, as pork belly is quite a fatty food, I’ve swapped it out for Shirataki noodles. These are super low calorie and are made from konjac yam, so taste identical to the traditional ones in the stew. If you can’t get hold of these, then you can replace it with a thick noodle or even leave it out completely.

The recipe below serves 2-3, and takes roughly 40 mins to cook. As you’ll see below, the ingredients are also a bit rough for this, because in Chinese stews, you can vary the amount of meat or noodles and it will still come out well.

Ingredients
1 strip pork belly/pork belly joint (roughly 400-500g – I used 430g)
1/2 stick cinnamon
2 bay leaves (ideally fresh)
2 star anise
3 slices ginger
200g sauerkraut
1 bag shirataki noodles (mine was 170g)

You’ll also need olive oil to release the flavour from the spices, and will need to add some salt and water along the way.

Continue reading “Pork belly and sauerkraut stew – a modern take on a traditional Chinese recipe”

blenderandbasilOct 15, 2015Jun 25, 2016Leave a comment

First Time Making, Recipe Review, Recipes

First time making: homemade apple and plum jam with cardamom

Now that my two jars of strawberry jam are nearly empty, it’s time to make a new batch – with apples and plums. I wanted to try something less runny this time, and as it’s the pectin that makes jam set, I decided to try a recipe with plums (a fruit that features on the high pectin list). Then I found this delicious-looking plum and apple jam, as well as this beautiful French apple jam recipe, so decided to combine the two and make an apple and plum jam with cardamom.

For the apple variety, I picked Gala, as it’s generally good for apple sauces: it’s sweet, got a good texture and isn’t too “watery”.

PLEASE NOTE: I thought it’d make 2 x 500ml jars of jam, but it turned out that there was only enough for 1 jar, so in the future, I won’t be scaling down the recipe in this way.

Ingredients
250g flavouring plums (4 plums)
250g Gala apples (2 apples)
1 cardamom pod
300g jam sugar
100g cane sugar
150ml water

You’ll also need: a potato masher and 1 jam jar (500ml).

I scaled down the sugar slightly, as the apple and plum varieties already seemed quite sweet to me. By the original recipe, you should use 450g sugar. Also, just because I’m paranoid (and there was still some left over), I’m using a mix of jam sugar, which contains pectin, and normal sugar. In theory, the plum will provide enough natural pectin, so you can use normal white sugar here. Continue reading “First time making: homemade apple and plum jam with cardamom”

blenderandbasilSep 14, 2015Feb 3, 20164 Comments

First Time Making, Recipe Review, Recipes

Classic pesto recipe

Let’s admit it, who hasn’t bought pesto in the shops? I did so many times… I understand many people think it is a complicated sauce to make, but actually it is super easy and a lot nicer when made with fresh ingredients. Recently, I had the opportunity to grow my own basil in the garden and therefore I took advantage to finally try to make fresh pesto. The result was so light and tasty I don’t think those pots at the supermarket or at the local deli will ever tempt me again.

When tackling Italian recipes, if I don’t have one stolen from mamma’s notebook, Giallo Zafferano is my absolute bible, they always get the right measurements and they don’t keep extra tips to themselves: so I followed their recipe, but instead of doing the pesto the old fashion way (with pestle and mortar), which would have taken me 20 minutes, I have used a hand blender, spending about ten minutes (if not less) to get my very own pot of pesto!

Ingredients:

50 gr basil leaves (note that to get the real thing as a result, you should try and find basil with longer rather than large leaves, the real Genoese basil)

1 garlic clove (but if you are feeling brave, or your partner is, you can put more)

6 tbsp of Parmigiano Reggiano

2 tbsp of Pecorino cheese

1 pinch of salt

100 ml of extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp of pine nuts

Continue reading “Classic pesto recipe”

blenderandbasilSep 1, 2015Apr 28, 20171 Comment

First Time Making, Recipe Review, Recipes

First time making: homemade strawberry and vanilla jam

As it’s summer, and strawberry season, I thought I’d try out Jamie Oliver’s supposedly super easy way to make homemade strawberry jam. While I love strawberry jam, most store-bought versions taste a tad too sweet/artificial for me. The jam with the lowest sugar-to-jam ratio I’ve found is the Streamline Reduced Sugar Strawberry Jam, which is nice as well, but guess there’s nothing like making your own!

It’s my first time trying out this recipe, so I’ve scaled it down slightly (only very, as the strawberries were on offer). Also, I didn’t find any whole vanilla pods in the shops, so used ground vanilla beans instead.

This filled 2 x 500ml jam jars – not quite as expected from what the original recipe mentioned.

I used…

Ingredients
800g strawberries
400g jam sugar
4g ground vanilla beans

You’ll also need: a potato masher and 2 jam jars (500ml).

Continue reading “First time making: homemade strawberry and vanilla jam”

blenderandbasilAug 25, 2015Feb 3, 20161 Comment

Recipes, Sunday Lunch

Dongbei Poussin and Mushroom Stew

Often called a chicken and mushroom stew, it’s traditionally prepared by the bride’s family on the wedding day, but is very much a popular and everyday dish. The actual preparation only takes 10-15 minutes – then you can just leave it to stew on low heat. The chicken used in the stew is actually closer to a poussin (you can also use corn-fed chicken though), so that’s what I’ve used here. This was one of my favourite stews from childhood, and as it’s a Chinese dish from Dongbei/Manchuria (in the North East), it has quite strong flavours. Continue reading “Dongbei Poussin and Mushroom Stew”

blenderandbasilAug 13, 2015May 16, 20202 Comments

Homeware, More

Baking Bread: 7 Essentials You Need

Getting hooked on our simple loaf recipe but missing the basics? Here are 7 kitchen essentials to support your baking fever step by step. Continue reading “Baking Bread: 7 Essentials You Need”

blenderandbasilAug 5, 2015May 16, 2020Leave a comment

Recipes, Simple Recipes

Cod Fillet with Red and Green Pesto

After a long day’s work, this is one of my go-to fish recipes: it only takes 5 minutes of prep work and 20-25 minutes in the oven (during which you can either cook some greens and potatoes to go with the fish or just enjoy some quiet downtime). It’s also very healthy: a fillet of cod is less than 100 calories, and that’s mostly in protein. Continue reading “Cod Fillet with Red and Green Pesto”

blenderandbasilJul 30, 2015May 16, 20201 Comment

Homeware, More

Perfect Serve: 11 Serving Trays to Accessorize Your Kitchen

These serving trays are great for our uncertain British weather: whether you use them to carry Pimms onto the garden table or a few slices of toast for a cosy breakfast in bed, they will certainly add a special touch to your kitchen.

All trays are available in the UK. International orders are listed with postage costs.